Big Trouble in Little China/Trivia

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Box Office Bomb: Budget, $20 million (not counting marketing costs), $25 million (counting them). Box office, $11.1 million.
  • Divorced Installment: The film was going to be a sequel to The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension.
  • Enforced Method Acting: In the wedding Scene where Lo Pan is putting the Needle of Love in Miao Yin, James Hong actually jabbed Suzee Pai too hard. You can see her flinch as he puts it in her.
  • Executive Meddling: The first scene was added later at the insistence of Studio Executives who just didn't get the Supporting Protagonist story line. This may explain why it doesn't really fit with the way the movie ends.
  • Fake Mixed Race: Gracie Law is implied to be a woman of mixed European and Chinese descent due to her interest in Chinatown affairs, considering them her people, and the fact she qualifies as a Chinese woman with green eyes due to Lo Pan's equal. Kim Cattrall is not of Chinese descent in any way.
  • Mid-Development Genre Shift: The film was originally a western, with Jack Burton as a cowboy aiming to retrieve his horse.
  • Screwed By the Studio: 20th Century Fox barely gave the film any promotion despite positive test screenings and released it opposite Aliens.
  • Stillborn Franchise: There were plans for a sequel that were scrapped when the film bombed.
  • Technology Marches On: Or maybe finance. When Jack and Wang are talking about their trip to the airport, it's implied that Wang might flee the state (or even the country) to avoid paying a debt of less than $3000. Not only is this not a terrible lot of money nowadays, if Wang upgraded to first class, it might cost him only a little less to get a flight to China than it would to just pay Jack.
  • Throw It In: James Hong improvised the line, "This really pisses me off to no end."
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